Galperin to Continue with Talk on January 28th

Gregory Galperin will give a second lecture on the foundations of hyperbolic geometry today at 4 pm. This talk will concentrate on certain geometric constructions of Gauss, Lobachevsky and Bolya.

Nikolai Lobechevsky

Gregory Galperin to Give January 22nd Talk

In my talk, I will tell you how the three great mathematicians: the Russian N. I. Lobachevsky ( who first offcially published the whole concept of non-Euclidean geometry); the German Carl F. Gauss (The Prince of Mathematicians, who wrote about this modern geometry only in his letters); and the Hungarian J. Bolyai (whose new concept was published as an Appendix to his father's book on geometry) were simulatenously and independently creating a modern geometry quite different from Euclidean Geometry. See full abstract

Analyze This!

A Tall Tale?

Can you decipher this tall tale?

Keith Wolcott to Give Jan. 15th Talk

ABSTRACT: When you rinse out a container, you add a bit of water, shake it around, and then dump it out. Then you repeat this process until you are satisfied that it is rinsed well enough. There are many ways to do this. For example, you could use a lot of water and very few rinses or little water and many rinses. Or you could use more water for the first rinse (since it is dirtier at the start) and then use less water for subsequent rinses. What method is best? My calculus class and I enjoyed working out what is the most efficient way to achieve the optimum results for this problem. We will share the results in this talk.

A Simple Toothpick Puzzle

The object of this puzzle is to move exactly one toothpick to obtain a square.

From the Desk of Peter Andrews

Welcome to another term - the economy may be sputtering, but Mathematics and Computer Science motors on. It is hard for a Canadian not to be delighted by a cold snowy day like we had on Thursday. I trust a harbinger for good things to come this term! Unfortunately, there are a few worries to occupy our minds, but I will get to them in a bit.

First, we will have our usual opening day faculty meeting, but this time we really do have some business to take care of.

We have hired Allen Bryant, who many of you may know from one of his earlier incarnations as a graduate student, ACF, or undergraduate (second BS in Computer Science), to teach the courses Bert Reed had on her schedule before she made her retirement decision. He will be in the center tower with Karim, Chad, and Clay for the spring.

I am sure most of you read the President's email about the budget situation and many of you will have been following the discussions on the UPI listserve. This is clearly a fluid process. I will give you the best update I can on Monday (today).

There are new classroom computers in the OM 3110, 3010, and 3030. Let me know if you need a hand getting used to them or if they don't have software you need. If you plan on using them, you might check them out before your first class.

Happy New Year to all.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all of the EIU family and friends from eiumath.

To start the new year we propose a little riddle.

Two friends, both fond of disputes, are walking down the street arguing about who has the most money in their wallet, though out of sheer stubbornness neither is willing to divulge the amount of money they are carrying. They meet a friend along the way who agrees to check each wallet to see if the amounts are different.

After checking, the friend announces that one wallet has twice as much as the other. He then hands the wallets back and disappears. The two disputants realize that the wallets are identical and they are not sure whether they have the right wallets.

Then it occurs to them that by switching wallets the amount of money that each of the two friends expect to have would increase. Is this right? How is this possible? This is sometimes called the wallet game and is attributed to Maurice Kraitchik.